Maybe then you should get your father to fix it then!

Using PartitionMagic
 

If your distro came with PartitionMagic, run the "delete Linux Partition"; this is the easiest way I know. It automatically formats your old Linux partition to dos, then merges the 2 dos partitions to 1 hard drive again. voila! one whole hard drive, not a ridiculous 2-partition, single OS hard drive.
the trial version of PM is probably available for download somewhere...

I cant find PM for free anywhere.

i am having the same problem
 

Hey,
I did the fdisk and removed the partition restarted my windows and tried fdisk /mbr but it did not do anything. My windows still has the same amount of hd. And my 2nd partition was not an non dos partition it was an extended partition. I dont even know what that means but hey. Can somebody help?

Re: I'm having the same problem
 

Hiya

After you used the boot disk to delete your partitions, did you restart the PC with the boot disk still in the PC?

When you run 'FDISK /MBR' it will remove LILO from the master boot record, and allow Windows to boot normally.

You will need to run the above after you have booted using the Boot disk.

Releasing the partitions will make them available for you to create new ones that you can use.

Windows does not allocate them for you, you must do this yourself.

The Extended Partition needs to be created, and once this has been done, you can create Logical Drives in the Extended Partition space.

Much the same as Tidying up your bedroom and putting in a shelving unit (Extended Partition), and then deciding how many and how high you want your shelves to be (Logical Disks). Then just dump all the stuff (data) that was on the floor onto the new shelves, making your bedroom tidier :)

Hope this helps you understand it a little better.

Ads

Humm...
 

I am not sure but i think to remember that Norton Utilities or Norton Ghost can do the repartitioning and partition merging without data loss as well and at least of NU there is a eval version you can DL from their page (not sure about ghost).
NU eval weighs in at around 50 megs and can be downloaded at http://www.symantec.com"

This is a problem that has been the plague to newbies. Some versions of fdisk will recognise a non-windows partition but when you tell it to delete it you will get a message saying that no non-windows partitions exist even though it just told you it was there. You can't reformat or anything simple like that to get rid of it. The only option is a utility like Partition Magic, check your distro, you might have it, or the scorched earth method, write zeros to disk. Since you dont have access to a good windows disk this wouldn't be good since it wipes out everything. I've heard rumores of a program available on the microsoft site called DELPART that would work but I've never tried it. Your problem with the "expired" windows disk is one of the many reasons you should dump windows and give Linux another try.

The 1st time I tried Linux, I got into the same sticky situation - since I didn't really understand fdisk and the /mbr is undocumented (in the Windows supplied version), I had to resort to using the Mandrake install CD to remove Linux, installing Windows on what was the old Linux partition (obviously I had changed it back to VFAT), then re-install Windows back onto the original Windows partition! This was a bloody nightmare!

The Windows supplied version of fdisk does have some limitations (see MBR question...) so if you've (or your father) installed Linux twice without doing an fdisk /mbr in-between, you may have some more problems. I've not really used the Linux fdisk as I am now quite happy using Linux (dual booting).

If your distro is Mandrake, you could use the disk-partitioning tool that is on the install CD (DiskDrake?) to remove your EXT2FS partition (and SWAP?) and convert it/them back to FAT32. You can stop the install procedure at (almost) any stage, so once you've done the disk part, click on 'exit installation' (bottom left).

If you've got TurboLinux, you can do a similar thing, but it's not partitcularly graphical (i.e. it's text based!). The disk program is called cdisk (or cfdisk, or something). It's not quite as easy.

Most distros come with a fairly simple disk partitioning tool (other thanj fdisk, which can be daunting for newbies, I should know!). You don't have to complete the install - if the worst comes to the worst, you could reboot the computer immediately after the disk bit. Most distros won't continue to install if there are no ext2fs partitions installed - this is very handy!

Once you've done this, try booting from a Windows boot-floppy and type fdisk /mbr. If this doesn't work, try it again. Keep trying!

Again, come back with any more details if you're still stuck.

BTW, if you decide that you want to give Linux another try, at a later date, we'll still be here to help with sound-card and modem problems.

This is rather late!
 

You don't even need to know fdisk to completely format windows. Just use the startup disk. Geeze I had installed at least a dozen windows os before I even knew what fdisk was. I still don't use it as is obvious. Hehe

Ok got to add this
 

When all else fails to remove the linux and u want that space rather it be to start all over and re-install or you just want the space. Start the installing process of linux. Then when u get to where you choose your partitions use diskdrake or whatever is comparable and then go in there and delete each section click done. and tell it to exit. Nothing is left. Try talking someone thru this over the phone and u learn sometimes the bizzare way is most likely the only way they are ever going to get it.

Removing Linux partitions
 

You can not remove Linux partitions with Windows, or ms-dos fdisk use linux fdisk or you can also use the partition program that comes with freebsd or mandrake.
If you have more then one partition that is used by Windows, move everything you want to keep to C:, run Linux fdisk or other partition program to remove linux partitions, then run fdisk /mbr, delete all logical partitions and make new, you might also delete the extended dos partition, that is not requered but I have had problems get all the space back if I don't delete it.

saxen